By no means do I feel like this means we have reached the finish line. We have definitely not. Our adventure with “3-Day Potty Training” seems to be turning into “3-Day x 2 x 2 (?) Days of Potty Training” and that’s being optimistic – let’s keep hoping in “days” and not “weeks” or “months”!

So today felt like we were treading backwards up until about 6:30 PM. Throughout a majority of the day, we were dealing with hefty accidents (large puddles) and running her over to the toilet only for her to quickly say “all done” with nothing to come from it. On the one hand, she was going about 4 hours between accidents, which told me she was holding her bladder somewhat, but on the other hand, we weren’t communicating effectively with one another.

I started to really think this Lora Jensen is bonkers despite her track record with her 8 successfully trained children. Then something changed.

Here’s what progress we made today:

We realized that the phrase, “underpants still dry” as we were reinforcing and asking her, did not mean the same for her.For her that meant she was about to go potty.Which means that when she was saying “still dry” earlier in the day, we could’ve caught those accidents much quicker had we known she was warning us instead of telling us she was in fact, still dry. Maybe she meant “I’m still dry but I won’t be for long!”

“Potty break” – she’s actually using the phrase now! Doesn’t mean she is telling us she needs the potty break. She said it when she’d already had an accident(in her high chair) and we hadn’t noticed. I guess she meant “hey suckers, I just had my own potty break by the way!” This isn’t entirely true all the time – she did say “potty break” before having an accident, but it didn’t yield any toilet prizes.

Though she seemed to be thoroughly ignoring my irritating remindersof “remember, to tell mommy and daddy when you have to use the potty BEFORE you pee in your underpants!” and “Yay you’re still dry!” the phrases were sinking in.

We had 2 real poops in the potty

1 measly little afterthought poop nugget

2 real streaming pee-pees in the potty (one happened during a real poop)

She gets upset when she has an accidentand wets her underpants, even though we tell her it’s OK, but we have to try not to pee in them. Good to know she realizes it’s not what she should be doing.

Failures: (on our part)

Not establishing a plan for the nighttime. The 3-Day eBook says to go in 1 hour after your child falls asleep, to take them to the potty (she actually writes asking, “do you need to go to the potty?” which I thought was a no-no), and then also take them to the potty 1 hour prior to their usual wake time.

Prepping her with terminology and the connection between pee/poop and the potty, before we actually started. This would’ve been a good idea. Details below.

Emotionally, I was missing our disposable and cloth diapers big time and definitely was getting short-tempered with Jeff and myself. I felt like we were failing in capturing her accidents and not giving her the best attempt at completing in the toilet, as compared with the previous successful days.

Day 1 used up 21 pairs of underpants, Day 2 was 13 pairs, and Day 3 turned out to be about 11 or 12. Today had no accidents during her nap time (which included no real nap), but then again, she didn’t empty her bladder at all during her pre-bedtime trips to the toilet for potty breaks.

In the video below, I talk about what I wish we’d done differentlyPRIOR to the 3-Day Potty Training method, which are as follows:

Discuss and demonstrate what it is to have wet vs. dry underpants

A wet diaper is what babies do(and show one of her wet diapers)

Where we put pee and poo, and quiz her when there’s no pressure to potty train. We did this a little bit after we went to the bathroom but we didn’t do it consistently, and it was only a few times.

Introduce what potty breaks are, and announce them for ourselves.

What it means to “keep underpants dry”

Perhaps if we as parents made a big to-do about running to the toiletwhen we had to pee or poop, and praising each other for going (as weird as that may have been), then she would see how she should respond when she has to go.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and we wouldn’t have realized how much it might’ve helped for her to hear and learn the terminology prior to the pressure being on. But we’ll continue to do the best we can with the above. Now that we know what she means by “still dry” in absence of clear signals (or if we are distracted), maybe we can be done with 3-Day Potty Training in just a few more days.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but hopefully not. I just keep reminding myself – we chose to Sleep Train as soon as we could, and the only thing that made it difficult was being inconsistent.

So we’ll try our darnedestand believe in the process (and in Jia), so like sleep training, it’ll fall into place sooner than later.

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Written By Jeni, MPH MSN RN

Creator of Little Sproutings, Written by Jeni Taylor, MPH MSN RN.
I'm a nurse, public health advocate, and new mom living in Los Angeles, CA.
I created Little Sproutings to share my experiences as a mom and discuss relevant baby-health topics through well-researched posts to help parents (new, experienced, and expecting) learn the why and how.